February 8, 2010 – Peace Corps Worldwide

100 Days (Or Less) Part Eleven: Day Six

Feb 08 2010

Day Six The invention of movable type created opportunities for writers that could barely be imagined in Gutenberg’s day. The opportunities that await writers in the near future are immeasurably greater. Jason Epstein, editor You need a strong protagonist regardless of what you are writing, a novel, memoir, or non-fiction. Most writers have a problem with creating a character who is larger than life, fully developed, and a consistent protagonist. For books of non-fiction, the larger than life hero (or villain) steps out of the pages of history. He or she is the reason you are drawn to the story. Remember, your protagonist is your story’s major character. This is the person with whom your reader will identify. You want your readers to care about your protagonist. He or she is your new best friend. You need to care about your protagonist. If you as the writer hate the protagonist . . .

Review Of Cynthia Morrison Phoel (Bulgaria 1994-96)

Feb 08 2010

Reviewer Mark Brazaitis is the author of three books of fiction, including The River of Lost Voices: Stories from Guatemala, winner of the 1998 Iowa Short Fiction Award, and Steal My Heart, a novel that won the Maria Thomas Fiction Award given by Peace Corps Writers. His latest book is The Other Language: Poems, winner of the 2008 ABZ Poetry Prize. His short fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, The Sun, Witness, Notre Dame Review, Confrontation, and elsewhere. • Cold Snap: Bulgaria Stories by Cynthia Morrison Phoel (Bulgaria 1994–96) Southern Methodist University Press June 2010 208 pages $22.50 Reviewed by Mark Brazaitis (Guatemala 1991–93) Good fiction works from the inside out. Yes, The Sun Also Rises is a novel about post-World War I Paris, with a little Spanish bullfighting thrown in, but it’s essentially and vividly the story of a man (Jake Barnes) who loves a woman (Lady Brett Ashley) who . . .

Peace Corps At Day One, # 9

Feb 08 2010

The only RPCV book that focuses exclusively on Peace Corps Training–that I know about– is Alan Weiss’ (Nigeria 1963-64) High Risk/High Gain published in 1968 by St. Martin’s Press. It is Alan’s account of training at Columbia University in the summer of 1963. It is a funny, outrageous, and a sad book. In his book, Alan focuses on the elaborate system ‘someone’ at the Peace Corps had created, a series of rating from High Risk/Low Gain to Low Risk/High Gain. All of the PCVs in those early years was so graded in our Peace Corps Training report card. A year after my tour in Ethiopia I returned to Addis Ababa as an APCD. In the office files, in the old Point Four building, I discovered in a bottom file cabinet drawer a copy of how the psychologists back in Georgetown Training had evaluated all of us, the first PCVs to Ethiopia. I went down the long list of some 275 PCVs and found my name and my rating. . . .

Archive - February 8, 2010